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#1: Reduce Ad Costs With Bidding Options

Automatic bidding is the default choice for Twitter ads, but other bid types can increase exposure among audience members who are more likely to click or follow.

To change your bid type when creating a new ad, scroll to the Set Your Budget section and click Show Advanced Options. This reveals a drop-down menu, allowing you to select a bid. You’ll see options for maximum and target bidding.

You can set your budget according to three bidding options, as well as daily and maximum spend limits.

Next, make a maximum bid to set how much a lead, click, or engagement is worth to you. You may actually spend less than you offer. Once you win an auction, your offer will be reset to only a penny more than the second-place bid.

This method is beneficial for boosting ad performance, because you can end up earning more clicks, leads, and engagement than you thought your budget would allow.

Or you can make a target bid to enter as many auctions as possible, potentially advertising to more users while controlling how much you spend. Set the average amount you want to spend per lead or link click. Twitter automatically stays within 20% of what you enter for auctions each day.

For example, suppose you bid $3 per click. Twitter will win you auctions at $2.40 per click and others at $3.60, averaging out to your bid price.

Compared to maximum bids, target bids can give you access to a larger audience. That’s because Twitter won’t shy away from auctions that exceed your set price, potentially earning more space on users’ feeds.

Compared to automatic bids, target bids can win you more auctions. That’s because Twitter won’t enter you with the lowest bid possible.

On a case-by-case basis, making a maximum or target bid can improve your ad performance while saving some of your budget for future campaigns.

#2: Refine Targeting With Audience Insights

Twitter’s built-in analytics suite can help not only when targeting specific audiences, but also when creating ads that appeal to them.

To start, open Twitter Analyticsandclick the Audiences tab at the top of the page. From here, you can toggle between groups of users, ranging from your followers to profiles you’ve reached organically. You can also navigate the sub-tabs to see information about audience interests, languages, buying habits, and more.

Twitter Analytics lets you choose different audiences to explore.

This data is valuable when setting the targeting criteria for your ads. For example, say the bulk of users who have engaged with your content are women, and they’re mostly from the United States. You now know to target this demographic, which should generate clicks and other interactions.

However, there’s still the hurdle of crafting ad copy, images, and attention-grabbing calls to action. Referencing Twitter Analytics can help with this challenge, too. As you cycle through tabs that contain different audience metrics, you’ll likely come up with different ways to frame your ads.

How to Make Better “Data-Driven” Marketing Decisions in Less Time— Without the Guesswork!

User net worth and household income are factors that appeal to advertisers. Imagine your products or services have price tiers from $30 to $1,000 per month, while a noticeable group of your audience members have annual incomes greater than $250,000.

You can see different income and net worth brackets that your audience members belong to.

You can glean two insights from this data. First, targeting an affluent demographic is a viable option. Second, advertising your highest price tier should yield some success.

When crafting the creative aspects of the ad, you can use the Interests bar graph, which is located under the Overview and Lifestyle tabs. It ranks popular topics based on audience interest.

Twitter Analytics compares different audiences, so you can see how their interests differ.

Suppose you want to promote an apparel business and your audience is largely interested in sports. The ad can use an image of an athlete wearing your brand’s activewear, and the copy can highlight your range of sports clothing.

Rather than blind targeting, guiding your ad strategy with accurate audience data will help ensure you reach and attract the interest of users who make up your core Twitter markets.

#3: Target the Followers of Influencers

When you target audiences based on relevant influencers, you can earn high click and engagement rates, as well as collect opt-ins and other leads.

Once you set your ad’s initial criteria, find the Add Followers button under the additional targeting option. You can enter the names of popular users in your nicheandserve the ad to their followers and similar accounts.

Why does this lead to more interaction? People who engage with topic thought leaders typically have a genuine interest in those topics. If not, they probably wouldn’t have followed someone who almost exclusively tweets about them. So, compared to the average user, they’re more likely to interact with your ad.

Keep in mind, you shouldn’t use influencers who share content about a range of subjects. The reason: many of their connections may not fall within your niche. For example, if you’re promoting a social media platform, you should have more success serving ads to followers of @Mari_Smith versus @TechRepublic.

How do you find these thought leaders if you’re unfamiliar with an industry? You can turn to a Twitter influencer marketing tool or service, but teams on tight budgets may prefer a manual method.

Search Twitter for relevant hashtags and keywords, and look for posts that earn high engagement numbers. Then click on those users’ profiles to see their follower counts.

Searching Twitter for the hashtag #SMM reveals some social media marketing influencers.

If they have large audiences and consistently generate likes and retweets, they’re probably influencers. Plugging their handles into your targeting criteria should help your ad metrics reach new heights.

Conclusion

You can improve ad performance on Twitter while getting the most out of your ad budget. At the same time, you can reach markets that want to interact with you. The payoff is more leads and engagement. It starts by changing your bidding approach. Then, you can use data from Twitter Analytics and leverage influencer handles to target and appeal to your ideal audience.

What do you think? Do you use these tactics to boost Twitter ad performance? How well have they worked? Have any other Twitter strategies you’d like to share? Please let us know in the comments below!

Tips on three ways to improve your ad performance on Twitter.

How to Make Better “Data-Driven” Marketing Decisions in Less Time— Without the Guesswork!

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